SenseTime Announces Inclusion of Shares in Hong Kong Stock Connect Program
According to the announcement on Shenzhen Stock Exchange on July 29, SenseTime, a leading AI enterprise in China, has been added into the list of stocks that can be traded through the Hong Kong Stock Connect platform.
Recently, SenseTime has become a market hit as a result of the release of a large proportion of restricted shares and the news of a share buyback. On July 19, SenseTime disclosed that it spent HK$14.07 million ($1.79 million) to buy back 6.7 million shares at a price of HK$2.1 per share. Analysts consider it to be a further effort by SenseTime executives to show the value of the company and safeguard the rights of shareholders, following the initiative to extend the lock-up period.
According to the company’s recent financial report, in 2021, its results met with a better-than-expected performance, achieving a revenue of 4.7 billion yuan ($696 million) in 2021, up 36.4% year-on-year, with a gross margin of 69.7%; while R&D expenditure was 3.06 billion yuan, accounting for 65.1% of revenue.
Built on its ever-polished AI infrastructure, the SenseCore AI Big Device, SenseTime’s R&D team delivers efficient, cost-effective, and scalable AI innovations and implementation. Rather than the many weeks required by others in the industry, SenseTime’s R&D and engineering teams can reduce development time to mere hours. From 2019 to 2021, the average number of commercial AI models produced per person per year by SenseTime’s R&D staff increased from 0.44 to 7.96, increasing efficiency by more than 18 times.
By the end of 2021, SenseTime produced more than 34,000 business-used models through SenseCore, an increase of 152% compared with 13,000 at the end of 2020.
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SenseTime has achieved significant breakthroughs in its four core businesses – smart business, smart city, smart car and smart life. In particular, the smart business segment achieved revenue of 1.96 billion yuan in 2021, up 31.8% year-on-year. It served 922 customers in the year, an 8.7% increase year-on-year. These included over 200 Fortune 500 companies and listed companies, across a wide range of industries including energy management, industrial manufacturing, infrastructure operations and maintenance, and logistics.
According to IDC’s report, in the second half of 2021, SenseTime maintained the top market share of computer vision applications for artificial intelligence in China, adding value to a 22.2% market share from 18.4% in the second half of 2020.
